CHN writer Jon Teitel continues with his NCAA Tournament interviews, this time catching up with Belmont guard Kerron Johnson. The Bruins will be making the second consecutive NCAA tournament appearence as winners of the Atlantic Sun, knocking off FGCU in Saturday's title game. Belmont lost to four-seed Wisconsin in last year's tournament appearance.

Jon Teitel: You were an AAU teammate of Jon Hood, who is recovering from a torn ACL on the bench of top-ranked Kentucky. Have you talked to him at all during his rehab from surgery?

The first three bids to the NCAA tournament were handed out on
Saturday, with the game drawing the greatest amount of attention being
the OVC title game between Murray State and Tennessee State. The
reason: this is the time of the year when bubble teams actively watch
the scoreboard in hopes that no unexpected competitors would show up on
the landscape. At 29-1 entering the title game it was clear that Steve
Prohm's team would be an "unexpected competitor" for an at-large bid and
the Racers were going to receive one had they lost to the Tigers.

Three tickets to the NCAA tournament will be punched on Saturday, beginning with the Big South title game matching seven-seed VMI and regular season champion UNC Asheville. Eddie Biedenbach's Bulldogs have avoided the turmoil on the opposite side of the bracket, which saw both Coastal Carolina and Campbell fall in the quarterfinals. Duggar Baucom's Keydets were the ones who knocked off CCU, as they shot an impressive 14-for-28 from three in their 85-68 win over the Chanticleers.

1. BYU survived a pesky San Diego squad to advance to the WCC semifinals.
A win over San Diego wasn't going to do a whole lot for BYU from a resume standpoint. Sure the Cougars would pick up a 25th win on the season, but a loss would have had a much larger impact on their NCAA tournament hopes than a win. That's what made the return of Noah Hartsock so important, given how much the Cougars struggled with the pesky Toreros.